Unreal Estate

Some of you may know that Mrs. Lawhawk and I have been house hunting for about a year now. Well, we were lucky to find a house that was marginally in our price range last weekend and quickly provided an offer, which was accepted on Friday. That should have been the end of the story.

It wasn't.

If you manage to hear a low guttural scream streaming across the 'net earlier this morning, that was me throttling my monitor as I read this news this morning. A higher pitch was coming from Mrs. Lawhawk.

The seller is in a nursing home and was selling the house because no longer needed. We had sent over our offer/contract to our attorney to begin the process, and we waiting on the seller to do the same - entering that time period known as attorney review. That period should have started Friday, but the seller delayed probably because they figured that they might benefit from running a scheduled open house, despite having said that our offer was accepted on Friday.

Now, we find out thru our broker that additional and higher offers have come in. We should have been in attorney review starting Friday or today, and instead we're being outbid on this house when bidding should have been closed off. Not illegal mind you, just incredibly unethical and insensitive.

If they didn't like our offer, they should never have accepted it. Now, we've got a bidding war on a property that should have been ours without any hassle. Oh, and our broker is nice enough to offer ways to keep the house (increase offer, reduce our protections in case something goes wrong, or shorten closing date).

Bastards. One and all.

What should have been a quick and easy contractual arrangement between buyer and seller, has turned into a bidding war because the seller's broker wanted to take another dip in the water. They figure they could get a few thousand more from someone else, and push the values higher, which means more money for the brokers, and sellers have to figure out how to pay for the house, which is already overvalued because of the high prices in a heated market with limited new housing opportunities. There isn't any new housing being built in the marketplace, so existing stocks are highly desirable, pushing prices higher. Throw in good schools and easy commute to NYC, and you've got the makings of a perfect storm for real estate pricing.

And unethical behavior by brokers looking to strike it big.

The gurgling sound that will probably be emenating later today will be from the seller's broker when we suggest what she can do with her behavior. I wont bore you with the details, but it should involve a pair of pliers, a blowtorch, and a couple of hardhitting homeys.

UPDATE 7/21/2005:
The house went for over the ask. No word on the exact figure. There was no way we were going over the ask. No house is worth it. In fact, no house purchase is worth suing over because it is unlikely to recoup the costs of suing in the first place. What was distasteful was the fact that the seller could simply have chosen not to accept our offer until after the Open House if they thought our offer was too low.

And for those folks who think we should sue, here's a bit of good advice - just because you have a right to sue doesn't mean that you should. Sometimes it simply isn't worth the hassle. This is one of those cases.